Debatepedia:Internships

From Debatepedia

Become an online editor for Debatepedia

Debatepedia (IDEA) is offering ongoing non-pay internships to talented high-school and college students and other interested individuals from around the world. The program is very simple. Debatepedia interns act as editors on the Debatepedia wiki, committing 8 hours per week toward researching and writing pros and cons and supporting evidence in debates of their choosing. Intern/editors can do their work from anywhere in the world, and need not travel to our headquarters in New York and Amsterdam. Interns will receive an internship certificate for completing one quarter (typically three months) of the internship. While individual internships can be tailored to an individual's schedule, typically we run winter, spring, summer, fall quarter internships. We encourage all interns to work for multiple quarters and earn multiple certificates.

Debatepedia internships are a great opportunity for you to:

Be given the highest editorial responsibilities and priviledges, unlike typical paper-shuffling internships.

Work online on your own time each week, amidst your school schedule or another job, to achieve your weekly debate objective.

Become a trusted founding editor and member of a movement ("the Wikipedia of debate") that is just beginning.

Spend all your time researching and writing pros and cons ferociously, learn essential information, and deliberate on the debates you care about.

Research and write topics that you are already supposed to do research on for your competitive debates (if you're a competitive debater). But, do it faster by utilizing Debatepedia's unique organizational structure instead of "cutting-cards".

Have a public impact by writing articles that thousands of citizens, fellow debaters, and students will read, and thousands will benefit from in their own deliberations on important public debates.

Have an impact on decisions by writing articles that have the potential to be used by leaders and their staffers like "briefings".

Gain public attention for doing this great public work. On a wiki, all of your edits are recorded in the history page of articles, and you can create a robust profile page of yourself that notifies the world of yourself and your various interests. #Impress employers by directing them to view on the site your profile as well as a body of work that you have done. Earn a letter of recommendation from the founder and chief editor of Debatepedia, Brooks Lindsay.

Help spread the word about Debatepedia in your school and become the focal point for recruiting and organizing editors on your campus. Offer Debatepedia as a tool for your professors in your classes - Debatepedia is tailor-made for the classroom environment, and your more open-minded professors will love the idea.

Help channel your debate club and community into the same, important editorial tasks that you will be doing. Rally a community of editors around your important work, and generally help the debate community better apply its research and talents to the benefit of the broader public - an unfortunate disconnect that must be changed.

Prove your editorial abilities and earn the opportunity to become a paid member of the expanding Debatepedia team. Later in 2008 or in 2009, Debatepedia hopes to be able to bring an additional editor or two on to the project full-time. If you are a in college and thinking about job opportunities after graduation, this is a very unique one. As a paid consultant, you would have a unique level of freedom, given the nature of the project online (you can work from anywhere). If you want to hop around to various locations around the world, live a couple months here and there, and generally have the flexibility offered to online consultants, this arrangement offers it. You would also gain the opportunity to work side-by-side and learn from the founder of Debatepedia, Brooks Lindsay, who graduated from Georgetown University in 2006. Your internship in 2008 would be an editorial trial period to earn this opportunity.

To apply, simply write to brooks [at] debatepedia.org a short letter of your qualifications and interests in the project.